How Robin Vos embarrassed himself, then embarrassed himself again

[hue]

http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/editorial/how-robin-vos-embarrassed-himself-then-embarrassed-himself-again/article_6e0ddd3f-8908-588b-92cd-094806635f34.html

Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, blew it.

Against the wise counsel of good government groups, election experts, academics and community groups from across the state, Vos pressed ahead with a discriminatory voter ID law that was never going to stand the test of judicial scrutiny.

The law was rejected Tuesday in a ruling by Federal Judge Lynn Adelman, a nationally respected jurist who wrote a decision that was hailed by election law analysts in Wisconsin and across the country.

The ruling by Adelman was grounded in data that showed why the law Vos and his colleagues enacted without considering the consequences would indeed have negative consequences for Wisconsin voters.

Noting detailed studies that show African-American and Latino voters in Wisconsin are measurably less likely than white voters to have a driver's license or photo ID, Adelman determined that Act 23 creates a clearly discriminatory circumstance. "This is not a political process that is equally open to participation by blacks and Latinos," he wrote. "It is one in which a disproportionate share of the black and Latino populations must shoulder an additional burden in order to exercise the right to vote."

But Adelman did not stop there. He analyzed the question of whether a voter ID law was needed to address the supposed threat of voter fraud. His conclusion, based on an extensive study of Wisconsin elections, was definitive: “Virtually no voter impersonation occurs in Wisconsin and it is exceedingly unlikely that voter impersonation will become a problem in Wisconsin in the foreseeable future.”

The balance Adelman struck is one that is exceptionally likely to stand the test of whatever additional judicial scrutiny might result from a wrongheaded appeal by Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen.

[Scuba]

1. "“Virtually no voter impersonation occurs in Wisconsin ..."

It's not about voter impresonation, it's about vote suppression.